When a Storm Gets a Name: The 72 Hours Before, and the 48 Hours After

Most homeowners have a general sense of what storm preparation means. Bring in the furniture, close the shutters, hope for the best.

 

What they usually don’t have is a picture of what happens at their own house when they’re 1,200 miles away and a system in the Gulf gets upgraded to a named storm. That’s a fair thing to want to know, and it’s not something you should have to call and ask for.

 

So here is ours, written out.

 

The 72 hours before

 

A named storm doesn’t start our preparation. Most of what protects a home was done in May and June, before the season began. What the 72-hour window does is convert that groundwork into action.

 

Day three out. We confirm the forecast track against our client map and sort homes by community, not by route. Port Royal and Aqualane Shores face a different set of risks than Verona Walk or Winding Cypress. A ground-floor home two blocks from the water and a third-floor residence in Pelican Bay need different attention in the same storm. We work the list by exposure.

 

Day two out. Exterior work. Furniture, planters, umbrellas, grills, anything on a terrace or lanai that can move in a 70-mile-an-hour gust. These items cause a large share of the window and slider damage we see after storms, and they’re the easiest thing to get right. Drains and gutters get checked again. Shutters and impact protection get closed or verified depending on your home’s system.

 

Day one out. Interior. Thermostats set, refrigerators adjusted, valuables and documents moved off the floor in any space with a history of water. We take a final round of time and date stamped photographs of the property, inside and out. That set of images is what an insurer will eventually want if you have to file, because it establishes the condition of the home hours before the event rather than months before.

 

Then you get a message from us confirming the home is prepared, with the photos attached.

 

The 48 hours after

 

The hardest part of post-storm work is not the home check. It’s access. Roads close, bridges get inspected before they reopen, and communities set their own re-entry rules. That’s why our first update to you is usually about when we can get in, not what we found.

 

As soon as access opens. Exterior walk first. Roof line from ground level, windows, sliders, screens, pool cage, seawall or dock where applicable, and the perimeter for debris and downed limbs. We photograph everything, including what’s fine, because a photograph of an undamaged wall is evidence too.

 

Then interior. Ceilings and around every opening, since water intrusion shows up at the joints first. Power status, AC operation, and a humidity reading in every zone.

 

That last one matters more than people expect. We hold interior relative humidity at around 50%. Above 55% a home is already in risky territory, and at 60% and higher, microbial growth can begin blooming within 72 hours. A house that loses power in August sits at ambient humidity, and ambient humidity here in August is not close to 50%. Which means the clock that starts when the power goes out is a three-day clock, not a three-week one. In a long outage we are looking at generator status, portable dehumidification, and whether the home needs to be opened and ventilated before it needs anything else.

 

Then the report. You get a written summary with photographs, whether or not there’s damage. If there is damage, we tell you what we think is urgent and what can wait, and we contact the vendor you’ve already authorized. That authorization is the single biggest difference between homes that get handled in days and homes that wait weeks. When a storm passes through Collier County, every restoration and roofing company here is booked within hours. Being in a vendor’s queue on day one is a materially different outcome than calling on day four.

 

Why we do this by community

 

We serve Aqualane Shores, Port Royal, Old Naples, Coquina Sands, Lake Park, Moorings, Park Shore, Pelican Bay, Royal Harbor, Caymas, Verona Walk, Winding Cypress, Lely, Naples Reserve and Fiddlers Creek, along with several homes on Marco Island.

 

These places do not experience the same storm. Surge exposure, elevation, tree canopy, drainage design, association rules about re-entry and shutter deployment, and the age of the building stock all differ. A protocol that treats them identically is a protocol that’s wrong somewhere. So each community has its own, and each home has its own notes on top of that.

 

What we need from you

 

Three things, and none of them are urgent today, which is exactly why they’re worth doing today.

 

Make sure the phone number and email we reach you at are current, along with a second contact who can make a decision if we can’t reach you.

 

Confirm your vendor authorization is on file, so we’re not asking for permission during the hours when permission matters most.

 

Tell us if anything about the home has changed since spring. New furniture on the lanai, a generator installed, a shutter panel that’s been sticking, a room that got renovated. Small changes alter the protocol.

If you’re not sure what we have on file for your home, ask us. We’ll send it to you.